Tribute to Faithful Servant that Provides a Critique of Missions Philosophy

 I write this brief post from the guest house on the Campus of Amano Christian School, in Chingola, Zambia. My purpose in coming here is to be an encouragement to some Liebenzell USA missionaries.  Kathy and I are involved with LMUSA.

I've read Kevin Bauder's weekly articles for some time now. During some down-time, here in Africa, I took time to read this week's post. In it, Bauder gives deserved tribute to a faithful missionary who served behind the scenes for many years and, in the end, accumulated a major impact. Likely, like me, you didn't know Richard Redding. However, especially if you are a pastor or someone involved in Great Commission ministry in other ways, I encourage you to read Bauder's piece. In paying tribute to this largely unknown servant, Bauder exposes some troubling trends in current conservative Evangelical mission work, especially regarding who is and who isn't a real missionary.

I saw this during my years of pastoring and working with missions from that perspective. Now as I'm involved in missionary care I see the impact from a new perspective. I encourage you to read the article, it's not long, and draw your own conclusions. I welcome your interaction.

The Wonder of Christmas, Don't Just Ooh and Aah. Live it.

Merry Christmas!

There is a tendency we humans have. It is often called "compartmentalization."

We have an ability to take certain thoughts, memories, and experiences and put them in a mental room--a place in our mind that we keep separate from everything else. I see moms do this when they suffer from some physical pain, yet wall that off from their everyday life in which they cook, clean, and make life good for the rest of us. We might say that kind of compartmentalization is good. Sometimes I have to deal with people I don't like. I need to keep my feelings separate from my need to do my job. I need to remember however that these compartments are never completely leak-proof. Big problems come when we attempt to compartmentalize issues that should be addressed and solved. This is especially true when we attempt to compartmentalize that which is explosive or corrosive. It will eventually get out.

But my purpose, today, isn't to talk about counseling. 

I observed in my pastoral ministry a tendency to compartmentalize when it comes to Theological truth. Now that I'm involved in Christian education, I am even more prone to build rooms in my

mind. "This is my Theological Truth Room. In this room, I believe that God is Lord. He is to be obeyed. I believe that all humans are created in God's image and are to be treated with honor, respect, and kindness. In my Theological Truth Room, I can tell you about inspiration and how the Bible is truly God's word.

I have the ability, however, to step outside of my Theological Truth Room and live the rest of my life as if none of that is true. 

Two things, I've read recently remind me of my tendency to compartmentalize Theological truth. One of them is a well-written 3-part series about the wonderful Theological truth we celebrate at Christmas. The other is a practical reminder I received from a missionary colleague.

"Tried With Fire: Like Jesus," by Kevin Bauder (Scroll down at the site and start with Part 1) takes on the difficult subject of the nature of Christ, the hypostatic union, the kenosis, in plain terms--the wonder of Christmas. The nature of the God-Man, Jesus Christ is at the heart of our faith. It is also at the fringe, or just beyond the edge of what we can comprehend. There is good reason that this truth occupied the best minds of early Christian history. It is a key part of our view of the Triune God. This saying that is frequently quoted about the doctrine of the Trinity, applies to the nature of Christ, as well..

The Trinity:

Try to Understand It

and You’ll Lose Your Mind.

Try to Deny It

 and You’ll LOSE YOUR SOUL!

(As a side-note, Fred Sanders has an interesting article on this, in which he says we don't know who said it first .)
Getting back to my main point, however, Bauder reminds us, referring to Philippians 2, that the wonder of the incarnation is not a Theological pearl to store away in the Theological Truth Room of my mind. It is a reality that should inform every aspect of my life. The way of thinking that led to God the Son's humiliation, should be my way of thinking. If Christ was willing to lay aside His honor for the sake of others (John 17, Phil. 2), then who do I think I am, when I claim that, or act as if, serving others is somehow beneath me? 

The truth of Christmas should not be remembered just during a certain season. Rather like the frankincense the wise men presented to Christ, gave a smell that permeated every part of the house, all my life should be informed by this sublime reality. I should not only proclaim with wonder that "God became man." I should live a life that is an appropriate response to the incarnation. I should live in the "Therefore" of Romans 12:1.

A friend is a missionary with another agency and a part of my Guam Church. 
She and her husband are on furlough, a strange (to others) part of the missionary occupation that involves visiting supporters. She writes:

Last Saturday, we spent part of the day with [some folk they know from the past at our Church]. They asked about many of you and send their greetings. At lunch they were telling one of their sons and his wife about their first Sunday at [our Church]. Right after the service, [a couple from our church] invited them to lunch at a restaurant. The [couple] didn't know them. The [visitors] felt so welcomed at [our] Church that they decided not to look anywhere else for a home church. So once again everyone can see how important is for everyone in our church [or any church, or a small Christian university] to do their part to make visitors feel welcomed.  

What this couple did for some visitors to their church has a direct relationship to the wonder we celebrate at Christmas. Why should I spend my time and money on strangers? I might not even like them.

Why? because of what Jesus did for us. As the Apostle John puts it, so succinctly, "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Open the door, let the wonder of Christmas spread through all your life. It is a truth too wonderful to keep in just one room.

 Merry Christmas!

Another Voice for the Cessation of Imprecision:

Dr. Kevin Bauder, is a writer I describe as a sane Fundamentalist.  He wrote a fourth of the book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism.  I find his articles at In The Nick of Time, his blog, to be consistently worth reading. He recently wrote about Cessationism and Continuationism.  In that post he observes some of the same "imprecision" that I observed in my foray into the world of academic theological conversation on that subject.  You can read his thoughts about the need for greater precision in the conversation here.  You can find my thoughts, and links to some papers on cessationism, at least the promise thereof, from the presenters at the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics,  here, here, here, and here.

It is an important conversation.  I hope it continues.

A definition of Fundamentalism?

I am doing my reading in a Kindle reader on my computer, so I don't have page numbers, but what I'm writing about is toward the end of the book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)
It is near the beginning of John Stackhouses response to Al Mohler's chapter--neither of these guys regards himself as a Fundamentalist, yet it appears to me that in essence Stackhouse is accusing Mohler of being one.  (Elsewhere in the book, Kevin Bauder, the Fundamentalist representative, tongue in cheek, tries to protect his friend, "Brother Al," from such a fate.)

Anyhow, it looks like Stackhouse's accusation makes a definition that sounds pretty good to me:

I respectfully suggest that his position is not “confessional” so much as it is “conservative,” and in exactly the way American fundamentalists understand “conservative”: conserving what they understand to be the basics of the Christian faith, regardless of when or by whom in church history they might have been formulated. As far as they are concerned, what they defend is simply what true Christians have always affirmed—and it comes right out of the Bible.  (emphasis mine)

Hansen, Collin; Naselli, Andrew David (2011-09-20). Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) (Kindle Locations 1795-1798). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Fundamentalism, Fundamentally understood, may be more correct than some of us have been willing to admit:

I've been doing some thinking/reading/even a bit of writing, about my Fundamentalist roots.
Maybe I've just started paying attention, but it looks to me like some people have been writing some really good stuff on Fundamentalism recently.  The fact that Fundamentalism was given one of the four places at the table in Zondervan's recent book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, is significant in itself.  That some thoughtful Fundamentalists are presenting their position with scholarly sensibility, and that thoughtful leaders from outside the movement are taking these Fundamentalists seriously is highly significant.
I was saved and grew up in a church aligned with the Independent Fundamental Churches of America.  My pastor, who liked me so much that he became my father-in-law, knew William McCarrell, founding father of that movement, on a first name basis.  I attended 2 Fundamentalist Bible Colleges, and later received a Masters from Liberty Seminary--back before it had broken into the big time.  For some reason I never received the Sword of the Lord; you card-carrying types will have to forgive me.
For all of my adult life I have pastored a church that is firmly rooted in the "come out from among them" mentality that marks Fundamentalism.
I have great respects for the battles that my Fundamentalist forebears fought.  I am incredibly thankful for what I received from that heritage--a rock solid respect for the Bible, a believe in the power of the Gospel, the commitment to Christian living that is distinct, in Biblically defined ways, from the life of the world, that sort of thing.  Yet, I've never been all together comfortable with the title, or with what I regarded as some of the more troubling realities of Fundamentalism.  While I think I have continued in the road on which my early church and college training set me,  I'm not sure I can call myself a Fundamentalist.  That's not a big deal, but it would be nice to know what box to check.

One of the problems I had with the movement is, it just seemed like Fundamentalists were mean.  Apparently I'm not alone.  Kevin Bauder, the capable writer who capably gives the Fundamentalist position in the book mentioned above, talks about some of his early observations here.  The ones that were held up as heroes didn't seem like the kind of folk one would want to spend time with.  I remember reading back in the old days (for me) the innuendo filled articles.  They dripped with the syrupy sweetness of avoiding "naming names," yet were loaded with coded certainty as to just who was being talked about and put down.  The authors professed great sadness at having to say what they said, but there often appeared a clear element of self-promotion in the process.  Thankfully, I can't remember any specifics.  I just remember the repeated impression.
I often wondered if Bob Jones University offered a class on creating a stink.  It seemed that many of those who claimed BJ as their Alma Mater were good at it.  I remember one time when a delegation connected with BJ publicly boycotted a Billy Graham rally.  (Years before, the old original Dr. Bob had told Billy he wouldn't amount to anything when he left BJ.)  Anyhow, I remember how cool I thought it was when Billy quoted the old Fundamentalist war-horse.  "If a hound dog is howling for Jesus I'm on the hound dog's side."    I agreed with, and still do agree with much of the rationale behind the boycott, but I thought the protest was utterly wrong..  In making a decision about what to do about a local Billy Graham Evangelistic Association meeting, I remember siding with the hound.  I didn't get involved, prayed that folk would get saved, and mostly kept quiet.  I lacked the mean-gene that seemed to be in the DNA of the big-gun Fundamentalists.
I remember sitting in my living room talking to one of the finest--maybe the finest--men of God I ever knew.  One of the Fundamentalists watchdogs who ruled a domain that overlapped with the sphere of ministry of my friend was trying to pressure  my friend into conformity with the "truth."  My friend resisted, hung in there, and survived.  It wasn't pretty.  It was mean.  In more recent years I watched as Fundamentalist enforcer "A" exerted pressure on Fundamentalist leader "B" to exclude leader "C" from some of the perks that come with belonging to the "club."  There is always an unfortunate cost to be paid if one stands up to these strong-arm tactics.  I've been fortunate enough to have ministered in a place that is off the radar.  I'm sure that the apologists for "Taking a stand,"  (For any non initiates who might read this, that is an old Fundamentalist code word.) can give another, more spiritual explanation, but it sure came off as mean to me.
When Fundamentalism began to be popularly associated with extremes like King James Only-ism, the easiest thing for many of us to do--this is still pretty much my position-- is to just note use the title.  A former card-carrying Fundamentalist, Charles Wood--his Woodchuck's Den emails are well worth reading (Write LORCHUCK@aol.com & tell him I sent you.).  The Woodchuck now calls himself a Conservative-Evangelical.  You can find out more here and here.  Pastor Wood says there is a group of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists who could be described as "conservative" who have much more in common with each other than they do with their brethren to the left (Evangelicals) or to the right (Fundamentalists).  Another recent blog post takes this thought further.

Bauder affirms what confessional evangelical, Mark Dever, recently said: “There is nothing wrong with our having fences. But let us keep our fences low and shake hands often.” I concur with Bauder’s response: “That remark nicely summarizes the sense of a growing number of fundamentalists” (Ibid., p. 103).  (http://sharperiron.org/, "Moving Toward Authenticity: Musings on Fundamentalism, parts 1 & 2)

 I find this conversation refreshing.

Let me close with a question.  Bauder talks about what he calls "indifferentism."   It appears to me to be a distinction between Evangelicals who hold to all the Fundamentals, and even act Fundamental, and true Fundamentalists.  I don't feel I am indifferent to the errors of others, but when those faults are of a secondary nature, and they don't impact on my ministry, I don't feel nearly as much motivation to take a stand as the Fundamentalists I grew up with did.  I would rather say that I hold to "Leave-them-alone-sim."  I find Rodney King's Theology to be somewhat attractive, "Can't we just get along?"
So, who am I?

Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism:

I'm reading the book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism.  It is one of the Zondervan Counterpoint books.
Thus far I have read the first view by Kevin Bauder. Before I even read his chapter, just the inclusion of Fundamentalism as one view of Evangelicalism was informative.  The fact that a serious Fundamentalist (Though in good Fundamental fashion some Fundamentalists will likely criticize Bauder of doing so) leader would be a part of the project provided further insight, light and encouragement.  I also read the first response to Bauder's position, a  CONFESSIONAL EVANGELICAL RESPONSE R. ALBERT MOHLER JR..

I have come to appreciate both of these men in the past couple of years.  Their contribution to this book--what I have thus far read--is encouraging.  I look forward to reading more.  I welcome conversation with others who are reading the book.
 

I Both Embrace and Reject Fundamentalism:

Several years ago a Bible College instructor whom I greatly respect came up to me after I had been privileged to preach in chapel at the conservative, I think in the good sense of the word, Fundamental, Bible College where he teaches, and observed, "You are on a crusade, aren't you?"
I was glad he noticed. I'm not sure if he intended his comments as I took them, but I was encouraged. Perhaps I am the ecclesiastical version of Don Quixote, tilting at windmills hung from steeples, but I do continue on, lance in hand.
As far as I understand what it means to be one in the historic sense, I am a Fundamentalist. As far as how Fundamentalism has come to be defined at this point in history, I utterly reject the label. Too many Fundamentalists became too committed to too many principles, convictions, and conclusions that weren't fundamental at all. They allowed--in some cases caused--themselves to be defined by what music they didn't use, what Bible translations they rejected, which well known Evangelicals they separated from, etc., etc. They made silly distinctions, such as separating from Theologically solid people who failed to do due diligence to some Fundamentalist sacred-cow, while continuing to tolerate--in too many cases even embracing--those who hold to heresies like King-James-Only-ism. No wonder many young people who grew up watching these contradictions rejected the whole business.
When I've had the opportunity--they are few, and my circle of influence is small--I have challenged this drift in our movement. Thus my friend's observation: It may be a tempest in a Theological teapot, but I am crusading when I have opportunity.

Recently I came across an article by Dr. Kevin Bauder, President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis. Bauder appears to be a Fundamentalist with solid credentials, yet in his article, "Let's Get Clear On This," he chides his colleagues for some of their foolish distinctions and lack of sound thinking. I highly encourage you to read the article and then the follow-up articles, http://www.centralseminary.edu/resources/nick-of-time. The follow-up articles are listed in reverse order. As of today there are eleven. You need to scroll to page two in order to find the first one, "Now, About Those Differences, Part 1 - Why This Discussion?"

The whole set of articles is well worth the time it will take to read them. I'm so impressed, I'll be taking time to read them again. I hope to post some comments on this blog. I welcome yours.